Engagements with Graphic Literature introduces readers to the long and multicultural history of the field as well as covering the major theoretical perspectives. Each chapter includes detailed case studies of a broad range of forms and media: from sacred documents, canonical literature, satirical and subversive agitprop, pornography, online media, and graphic pulp fiction, including comics and graphic novels. The book explores both Eastern and Western graphic narratives as well as highlighting issues of gender, class, and queer studies in relation to graphic narratives. Engagements with Graphic Literature introduces readers to what it means to study graphic narratives and what is at stake.
Introduction
Chapter I: Before the rise of the book
Chapter II: Woodblock printing, the printing press, and the rise of the book market
Chapter III: Graphic narrative in the era of market-consciousness and imperialism
Chapter IV: Graphic narrative in the age of automation and newsprint
Chapter V: The post-modern graphic narrative in late capitalism
Conclusion: Graphic narrative in a post-colonial World
Michael Demson is an Assistant Professor of English at Sam Houston State University, where he teaches courses in Romanticism, World Literature, and Literary Theory. He has published articles in European Romantic Review, Romanticism, the Nathaniel Hawthorne Review, The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, and his own graphic novel, Masks of Anarchy, was published by Verso in 2013.
